Google has destroyed the lives of revenge porn victims

This article focuses on Google not being liable, but ignores the fact that the specific creators and posters of the content appearing in Google's search results certainly can be sued.

There have been a lot of anti-CDA 230 sob stories lately, which have indeed highlighted real victims of online content and abuse, but imposing liability on platforms simply destroys the free and open internet. Search engines would cease to exist if they became liable for simply indexing content created by others, and sites like Hacker News wouldn't be able to allow user submissions and comments.

We need to be careful to avoid victim-blaming, but equally important to recognize that very real harms to some people don't justify upending policies that have created enormous value for society as a whole.

Not to mention that, even without CDA 230, the majority of the problematic speech online would remain legal in the US because of the First Amendment.

Search engines came into existence back in the late 90s as a way to replace human-curated indexes of content so that the CPC (cost per click) for display advertisements could be reduced.

Twenty years later, we are still realizing the price that we pay for universal indexing of all human-created content: we have enabled hate groups to congregate safely under anonymous identities, while simultaneously enabling the complete loss of having a "private life" away from the prying eyes of others.

Yahoo's human-curated index, and the many "books about the Internet" that were published back in the day, certainly did not have the breadth of coverage that search engines did. But in return for that, every site you visited could be assumed to have at least the value the index stated it would have. Topical, relevant, curated. And safe.

This article isn't the best at expressing this point, but they're realizing the same thing that few of my tech friends wish to consider: Stripping away the human review and approval process of maintaining a "card catalog" index of websites may have been profitable, but it comes at the cost of our humanity.

The part that that had always intrigued me is how data aggregators seem to really enjoy the fight when someone wants their data removed. If it were really just about marketing - why waste time and money peddling to people who don’t want to be peddled to? I think at some level it’s more about being able to cause people discomfort and annoyance without repercussions, and I think there is a significant population of disempowered people that appeals to. Like some variant of the Stanford prison experiment perhaps?

Google needs to inject a bit more humanity into its business. Yes this is a special case, but certainly they already have a mechanism for skipping some listings. This is an issue of goodwill, which perhaps still Google doesn't feel the pressure to build (due to something related to monopoly position).

If businesses, from the very largest to the smallest, do not behave as collections of real humans, then we might as well be living under Skynet. Honestly, if what makes us empathetic and caring is ignored, then at some point software should replace us.

But regarding revenge porn, porn, sexuality, nudity, etc., I think it's way past time that people realize that we all have naked bits. It's really no more astonishing than a tree having leaves and bark, and the occasional fruit! I believe religion has something to do with the largely artifically-ignorant view of nakeness and sexuality, but most religion is just a disguise for population control. So whatever the name of the leadership, the fact remains that people without clothes have nipples and other bits that US television can fine you for showing (honestly, it had never occurred to me that Janet Jackson had nipples!).

For these women who have been duped and taken advantage of, based on the current societal norms, it's terrible. Google should have some human sympathy in its organization, and it should have some executing willing to demonstrate the importance of Google being part of humanity. But at the same time, I hope the younger generations can finally return humans to their more natural state.

So who is more liable. The card catalog with a reference to something awful or the actual thing that did something awful?

I really feel for these people, but if Google gets into the content moderation business it will never end. They could spend all their resources trying to manage the floodgate that would open, but it wouldn’t be enough trying to appease all the different jurisdictions, advocacy groups, and lawsuits once they become anything besides a neutral entity.

Actually I really don’t like Google and would love to see them drown under the onslaught. Plus a lot of people would get some temporary relief until search moves to someone still neutral.

any google worker here?

lol "destroyed"? "merciliessly"? I love it in a world where a lot of bad shit goes down only the stuff that involves women and sex is automatically hyped up to the most important, even more than genocide. So every woman automatically gets a sort of 'supercopyright' where she can decide 20 years down the line what happens to every single copy of certain 'embarrassing' images of her across the entire world. Why not other types of images? I mean Bush puking on the Japanese PM was pretty embarrassing. Oh so because its a woman, even though she openly and knowingly released the pics in public, its still special. Man we really are still Puritans, still pedestalizing sex and the honor of our ladyfolk.

Search engines should treat searches on individuals as a separate, special category. Laws need to be protect personal information from Google's excuses. When federal laws on personally identifiable information were drafted, they weren't intended for a world where a megacorp indexed it all, and made it widely accessible, with no course for challenge.

U.S. laws need to catch up with reality.